Lindsay Kantha Souvannarath Analysis

Lindsay Kantha Souvannarath

"My hate is beyond good and evil… I do not consider myself evil, not even for committing murder. Murder makes no difference. All living creatures die. There is no such thing as dying “before one’s time”"

Birthdate: January 9, 1992

Planned Date of Attack: February 14, 2015

Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia

Outcome: Arrested, in prison

Psychological type: Psychopathic

Lindsay Souvannarath is a bundle of contradictions. Despite her father being Laotion, she is an open neo-Nazi. Classmates and teachers of her former high school recollected her as strange and quiet, yet online she expressed vivid fantasies of rage and hatred. She had feelings of inferiority over being biracial since an early age, and yet around this time she also developed a strong superiority complex. Perhaps it was because of all of these things that she along with 2 others almost shot up a mall, intending on killing dozens of people. The only way for the shy, quiet girl to overcome her own wide variety of eccentricities was to construct a persona where she was strong and powerful.

Souvannarath's mother was an insurance worker and her father was a dog trainer who also worked with at-risk youth. The marriage was stable, and there are no records of any serious altercations, domestic abuse, or neglect/abuse of Lindsay. Souvannarath showed insecurity over her mixed-race status at a quite young age, according to her mother she ran up to them and cried about it at the age of 4. She also displayed an inability to relate or interact with others- she did not have many friends growing up and claimed to have a boyfriend in high school, but in reality, this relationship was one-sided on her end. Strangely considering her personality, her parents would recall that she was not openly rebellious, in fact saying "she would obey rules to a fault" sometimes. 

Her functioning began to decline around puberty. In middle school, she assaulted another student by stabbing them with a pencil. Around high school seems to be when she began her obsession with nazi ideology, along with idolizing Varg Vikernes and the perpetrators of the Columbine shooting. At 16, she discovered a painting on an art website and talked to the artist behind it. She found out the artist happened to be a national socialist, and over time she was exposed to more and more of his beliefs, eventually becoming a nazi herself. She herself described the artist as a "gateway" to her neo-Nazism. This interest would eventually spill into her real life as well. In the RPG club at her high school, her chosen persona was the "Nightmare Nazi". This shocked her fellow players, but somehow the administration never took any action, due to no overtly racist behavior on Lindsay's end. In fact, her persona was included in the yearbook's DND page, shocking her classmates even more. Perhaps if something was done, she wouldn't have fallen deeper into radicalization. At the time, when pressed about her beliefs, she'd deny being a nazi. Many teachers of her's agreed with this:  "Lindsay obviously needed some professional help, I don't know if she got that help at home but she didn't get it at school.", "Nobody stopped her mind from melting. She rotted inside as a person and she just kept on rotting.", says teacher Mr. Vekony, "No-one checked on her activities, no-one was alarmed by her behavior. At Geneva we had a big focus on art and freedom of speech, so long as it wasn't sexual or explicitly gory then anything goes."

She graduated high school in 2010, and in that same year enrolled at Coe College. Not that much about her college years is known. However, a big source of information comes from the blog "An Unhelpful Guide in Asia", as the blog was written by someone who accompanied her on a trip to Southeast Asia in 2013. According to the author, she caused quite a lot of trouble for everyone else on the trip. Before it even started, she had the curriculum rearranged so she could visit her parents in Laos. She spent all of her time alone on her computer. When she met her parents, she dressed inappropriately, wearing what the blogger described as a "hooker shirt". She never cleaned up after herself, acted inconsiderately to her travel partners by doing rude things like waking everyone up by being loud and obnoxious, hogging the bathroom for herself, and refusing to do even minor tasks such as making her bed. Other instances of this behavior were her behaving rudely to a host family in Vietnam, belching loudly to insult people, and insisting on going on rides despite having motion sickness. Attempts to get her to change her behavior were in vain. Obviously, this ended up with no one wanting to share a room with her.

Let's get to her online activity. She was incredibly prolific online, having accounts on, among other sites, Tumblr, KiwiFarms, Twilight Sucks, GameFAQs, KnowYourMeme, Cracked, and a neo-Nazi forum called "Iron March". That last one'll become pivotal in a little bit, but for now let's focus on the other sites. She modded the Twilight Sucks site under the name "Blonde Guardian"- and, if the name wasn't a giveaway, she was later deemed no longer a member "due to her Nazism getting in the way of her being mindful to others". On other sites, she'd make poems, sketches, and posts lauding people like Hitler and David Duke. She later made a DeviantArt account, joining a circle of neo-Nazi users, before getting banned for this comic:

This is notable for a variety of reasons- Souvannarath's mouthpiece considers herself defective, yet still better than the people she looks down upon. Despite her consistently narcissistic and rude behavior noted earlier, she considered herself to not be "self-serving, unprincipled, useless". In fact, she seemed to think she transcended humanity entirely, similar to the Columbine perpetrators, Kimveer Gill, or Pekka-Eric Auvinen.

She continued her pattern of fanatic Nazism on her other accounts. Her icon on KnowYourMeme was of a nazi pony, and on GameFAQs she regularly espoused her National Socialist beliefs, leading to this funny exchange where someone points out quite the big contradiction in her beliefs and what she actually was:

And yes, her usernames tended to have references to Nazism too. On tumblr she used the name "cockswastika", and on KnowYourMeme she went under the name "Hyperborea Odyssea Hackeron".

Let's get to Iron Cross. Lindsay entered a brief online relationship with the founder of the forum, Alexander Slavros. She took it incredibly seriously, so much so that when she found out he wasn't actually interested in her, she exploded in rage- threatening suicide, and threatening to kill him and his new girlfriend. She also made a blog in which she  This culminated in a rant so vitriolic I have to copy and paste it in its entirety here:

"YOUR GIRLFRIEND DESERVES TO DIE The world would be a much better place to live in if it were guaranteed that wicked men died as virgins. I’d like to be able to point at a typical bully, abuser, or thug and taunt that no woman would ever want him. It’s the only thing they understand. They have no conception of morality, unable to perceive humanity as having any purpose beyond feeding, fighting and fucking. Especially fucking. We’re taught that women are the arbiters, offering future offspring to those whose genes should be passed on. We’re taught that they drive the process of evolution by selecting only the best and the brightest men. Oh, I wish. Why bother trying to better yourself as a person when there are thousands of battered, raped, psychologically broken and easily manipulated BUT TOTALLY HOT girls turning eighteen every day? They’ll even do anal if you verbally abuse them enough! I try to keep fighting. I try to deliver punishment whenever I can, within the bounds of social decency, which doesn’t get me far at all. Any argument I can try to lay down is always met with “Yeah, well MY GIRLFRIEND…” One day, I’d like to be able to respond “Too bad, son. I’m putting her down. Step aside, I’m a professional.” Of course, that’s a lie. I’m not a professional. But I have to start somewhere. If you don’t treat your toys nicely, I throw them away. Because that’s all that these girlfriends are. Toys. I cannot see them as human beings for they offer nothing to the human experience. They will create no art worth seeing, write no tale worth reading, have no thought that couldn’t be gleaned from Nicholas Sparks novels and trite ‘inspirational’ posters. They have the intellectual curiosity of a germ. They believe that ambitions are something for other people. They seek happiness in nothing but the love they give to others, believing their relationships to be divine and meaningful rather than something that is easily replicated by a Labrador retriever. Therefore they do not know that they are endlessly rewarding the evil deeds of men unworthy, and thus inadvertently weakening society. And quite frankly, they’re not even pretty. Nothing is lost if I put them down. In fact, we have everything to gain. But her mommy and daddy will be sad. :’C I see them all the time. They are constantly smiling, not because they are happy, but because they wouldn’t want to offend anyone by not smiling. They are unaware of the fact that they are prey animals, and that I hate them. They tell me they love my outfit, that I’m so very pretty. My replies are terse. I have no business speaking to them. Their existence drives me to nihilism, and they’re asking about my weekend plans. They think I’m shy when I’m just ignoring them. Of course your girlfriend isn’t like that, I’m sure she’s a beautiful and unique snowflake. She’s had some troubles in the past, but learning to trust you has made her so much better. Please. there is no such thing as a cute couple none of you fucking fucks are cute you’re all stinking sweating bags of meat propagating a race of pig-apes in the absence of a benevolent god who has either fucked off to another universe or been buried under a pile of innocents lying cold and rotten in a mass grave and here you are making gifs of yourselves kissing as the value of human life continues to deteriorate i would sell your souls for a pistol loaded with a single bullet this is how much i hate you this is how much i hate a world that you exist in my prayers for annihilation dissipate into the empty cosmos and die as you ought to your story ends here"

There are a variety of things to note here. Beyond the obvious vindicative nature throughout it, she dehumanizes these "girlfriends", saying that they have "no conception of morality", "weaken society", and that they reward "the evil deeds of men". People like them "drive her to nihilism", and prompt her antisocial nature. So, she essentially tries pathologizing her own behavior, shifting the blame onto other people. Anyone she views as "unworthy" deserves to die. Her comments about "seeing people smiling" all the time is also suggestive of delusions, even more so by her insistence of being able to tell why they're smiling. Did she literally have hallucinations?

Other notable posts by her include: 

"They use sex in commercials all the time to sell products. Why don't they ever use violence? Wouldn't you love to see a bunch of guys tearing each other apart with machine guns to get a bowl of Cheerios? Sure, it might traumatize our children, but in my opinion, children aren't being traumatized enough."

"The only reason for Americans to breed is to create more soldiers to fight for freedom. We need to weed out the weaklings early on. Survival of the fittest, man."

Her obsession with "survival of the fittest" would even play a part in the planned shooting; she wanted to target people who were "dysgenetic looking."

She also was active in the "Creepypasta" community, at least so much so she wrote one short story called Mice in 2009, which describes a colony of mice that evolved from a "small nest of captured specimens, ...cold, hungry, struggling for survival" into a thriving civilization. What is notable is that the story focuses on a female rebel mouse that ends up getting stuck in a maze of mirrors, going insane, and mutilating herself. Could this be autobiographical?

In December 21, 2014 she met her future co-conspirators James Gamble and Randall Shepard on Tumblr. Gamble and Shepard were old friends, and posted gore and pornography on their Tumblr blog, along with worship of the Columbine perpetrators, a uniting factor between all three. Gamble and Souvannarath would begin dating, and planning the attack. Here are some notable bits of their correspondence on Facebook:

"Ms. Souvannarath – I was going to go to China and teach English

Gamble – but you’d rather do this? … At no point do I want to think that I’m prohibiting you from doing something else if you wanted to

Ms. Souvannarath – I would much rather do this, no doubt about it.

Gamble – Good

Ms. Souvannarath – This is so much more meaningful to me than whatever “future” I’d had before

Gamble – I’m a person without a future. Wasn’t born with the ability to operate on my own, talk to people, motivation to work towards success… Some people aren’t mean[t] for this work. It’s sad but true.

Ms. Souvannarath – I’m your future now.

Gamble – I’m still thinking about the location. A mall would be great, but should we risk it when the security guards potentially have pistols? … The hospital would likely give us a bigger body count because of the immobile targets, but there won’t be as much of a “mass panic” as say a mall

Ms. Souvannarath – The mall sounds like more fun overall… I’ve always thought that the absolute best way to die is to die in battle. But as I’ve said before, I won’t let myself be stuck fighting someone else’s war. It’s kind of why I tried to network with all these fascists and Nazis and other Third Positionists – I imagined myself dying in the revolution. But I lost faith in them. And now, I’m going to die fighting a battle that’s practically all mine.” (pp. 224-7)

…

Ms. Souvannarath – Feeling like gods with power over life and death

Gamble – people will respect me once I have a gun pointed at them… fucking pathetic that that’s what it has to take to be respected.

…

Mr. Gamble – Exactly. I’ll be the one being admired for ONCE."

"Ms. Souvannarath – “[regarding buying school shooter chic clothing] then we can coordinate outfits and look bad-ass.

Gamble – That’d be sick

Ms. Souvannarath – And just sort of terrify everyone

Gamble – One of my favourite hobbies.

Ms. Souvannarath – Where do you usually scare people?

Gamble – Just in public… in general

Ms. Souvannarath –. Because I was just thinking if you had a usual hangout or something I’d show up there too, and then people

would be like “oh God, there’s two of them now”

Gamble – That would be perfect, ha ha

Ms. Souvannarath – And we just sort of exchange conspiratorial glances before staring at them

Gamble – hopefully sending them running

Ms. Souvannarath – what a great way to spend a day, just terrorizing the normal/inferior people

Gamble- I hope to do that on a major scale someday.

Ms. Souvannarath – same

Gamble – I have everything I need as well

Ms. Souvannarath – Do tell

Gamble – Rifle, shotgun, outfit, ammo, knife… I only have 13 bullets for the rifle though… So I will have to make them count. It’s also a single shotgun, can only fit one shell at a time. [ p 126-7, Gamble confirms that the shotgun shells are birdshot, not buckshot] But it’s better than nothing. I just wish I had a partner, that could take the shotgun, while I take the hunting rifle.… Way less chance of getting attacked/jumped if I had a partner 

Ms. Souvannarath-I’ve never fired a gun before. I’ve lived such a pitifully sheltered existence. Though it’s something I like to think about.

Gamble – I haven’t either. Which is why I’d have to be extra precise.”"

Souvannarath deliberately wanted to terrify and murder people. She chose a mall rather than a hospital to induce a larger amount of panic. Despite having her own plans in life, she still decided to throw it all away and commit mass murder. Her use of quotations when referring to "future" suggest she didn't think she had much of one at all. Her talk of dying in a battle is revealing; despite planning on murdering people she never knew, and had never done anything to her, she still situated herself as someone "fighting back". She had what most call an "irrational rationale", that masked her real motive; the thrill of killing, and playing God.

Her behavior following her arrest is strange. She began claiming that she was literally Eric Harris;

"… At first we were casual acquaintances having discovered each other’s Tumblr blogs through mutual interest in the Columbine shooting and in National Socialism… I was to be his Eric Harris, and he would be my Dylan Klebold.… Eventually I realized that we really were Eric and Dillon, their minds having taken refuge in our bodies sometimes after their demise in 1997."

She refused to speak about her "ideological motives" for the attack, claiming they were too complicated. She didn't express any remorse for her involvement in the plans, more than likely maintaining her actions were justifiable. Her demeanor is reminiscent of Brenda Spencer or Eric Harris, the cool, calm demeanor of a psychopath.

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Perhaps the most notable thing about Souvannarath is that she seems to resemble male shooters more than other female ones. Beyond the obvious influence of Eric Harris, her background and motivations resemble Elliot Rodger, Christopher Harper-Mercer, William Atchison, Kimveer Gill, and Pekka Eris-Auvinen. Her explosive vindicativeness resembles Laurie Dann, but aside from that she differs quite strikingly from Amy Bishop, Jillian Robbins, and Brenda Spencer in many ways. She had role models for violence such as Hitler, Varg Vikernes, and Eric Harris, had delusions of superiority, and targeted completely random people that, to her, looked like the people she thought "deserved to die". Spencer intended to target policemen just for fun, Bishop targeted people denying her tenure, and Robbins had a psychotic break and shot up a random college after having a fight with her boyfriend. Souvannarath wanted in the name of an ideology and intended to do it with multiple people.

I choose to classify Souvannarath as psychopathic due to her lack of empathy and remorse, narcissism, grandiosity, and vindictive nature. I would say she resembles an explosive psychopath and nomadic antisocial the most. Despite being shy and demure most of the time, incidents such as being annoyed by the Vietnamese hosts, breaking up with Slavros, or whatever prompted her to stab a classmate with a pencil elicited explosive outbursts of anger. Her self-loathing, misanthropy, and alienation also suggest a nomadic antisocial disorder, as they "see themselves as jinxed or doomed and desire only to exist at the edge of a world that would almost certainly reject them. Mired in self-pity, they drop out of society to become gypsy-like roamers, vagabonds, or wanderers." Her psychopathy likely changed her from being a vagabond to an aggressor- or at least, someone trying to be. Souvannarath was not charming or charismatic, and some students and teachers didn't express much surprise at her involvement, but the fact that many people she knew expressed the opposite reaction suggests she had at least decent impression management.

Souvannarath never had stable real-life friends. Despite a stable home life, she was consistently alone, with her only company being the internet. She was a biracial, weird, awkward, powerless girl, and in response to this, she clung to the nazi ideology to develop a world where she is exalted, where the inferiors force her to be the antisocial one, where she is a superwoman, and she decides who lives or who dies. Had she not been found out, she very well would've gotten this dream.

Fittingly, her planned epitaph she wrote days before her planned attack is quite a good summation of her.

"Der Untergang

Perhaps you have already heard the news of a mass shooting in Halifax.… It has always been my greatest dream to die in battle. But I do so not as a soldier, but as a murderer.… modern world… has forced me to bury these heroic longings deep beneath my surfaces where they have since festered at my core and metamorphosed into hate. Hate. It’s a strong word, but I’d rather let a strong word define me than a weak one. “Love”, for example, is a weak word, for one who loves is not nearly as strong as one who hates… Hate is the drive to exterminate all weakness… Hate sharpens the mind to where it becomes a weapon against all others… Free from empathy, free from manipulation, the isolated man sees the world for what it truly is. The result, of course, is hatred. My hate is beyond good and evil… I do not consider myself evil, not even for committing murder. Murder makes no difference. All living creatures die. There is no such thing as dying “before one’s time”"

They say every person has a "good reason" and a "real reason". Souvannarath's "good reason" was her ideology. Her real reasons were her overwhelming feelings of self-loathing, weakness, and impotent rage. Souvannarath wanted to transcend her meek, sheltered, pathetic life, and become a god, deciding who lived and who died. She was full of hate and saw no future for herself. To her, the only path of glory led but to the grave.